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Something In The Water

Have you ever experienced fate with a book?

Fate intervened to put Cat Steadman’s work in my hands at the right moment. Why hadn’t I read SOMETHING IN THE WATER before? It was published in 2017, not so old to be classic or vintage, but also not new. Nor can I claim it was obscure, since it was an early Reese Book Club selection. All I can say is it was fate that someone recommended this book to me after reading an excerpt of my current work-in-progress. And now that I’ve finished, I want to build a statue in honor of that person. What high praise!

NO SPOILERS in this review.

Another twist of fate: because it was personally recommended to me I bought it without reading the book jacket copy. Have you ever done this? It can be a real game changer. The first time I got lucky in this way was with the Secret Life of AJ Fikry. I was so glad I didn’t read the back cover before I finished that delightful book. Marketing people care more about you buying the book than enjoying the book and sometimes, though not often, this interferes with the reading experience.

The first 100 pages of Cat Steadman’s debut explores a relationship slowly breaking under the stress of life, while also building towards this same couple’s wedding. I had no idea what was coming at that point. I didn’t even realize that they would literally see “something in the water”, let alone have any indication of the havoc it would wreak on their relationship. The last 240 pages dovetail the relationship troubles with the “something in the water incident.”

Here’s what works: the pacing. I could NOT put this book down. I walked around with it. I stayed up too late and woke up too early with it. I found myself saying things like “I probably have time for one page right now” twenty times a day.

Here’s what also works: the contortion of the unreliable narrator device. This book is written in very very close first person. We are thinking with — and as — Erin, the wife. She is confused at times, about what she should do, about who is on her side, about who she needs to fear. And as a result we feel confused, but our reading brain alerts us that we’ve seen this before. There’s a little twinge that says, hey, brain, maybe ERIN is the one we shouldn’t be trusting with this account of things. Erin proves to be unreliable only in the way all humans are, she misses cues and puts on blinders, but she’s never fooling the reader, even when we feel like she might be intentionally leading us astray. The result is a captivating story that keeps the psychological thriller reader on her toes.

Here’s what doesn’t work: that phrase might be a stretch. The whole book works. BUT I really struggled with the last quarter section before the ending (it resolves well). This is the period in most books when things go over-the-top. People are murdered by the numbers, or in wild ways, or all hell breaks loose. Writers and editors call this raising the stakes. If you’ve been raising the stakes throughout the book, by the time you get towards the ending things should be at preposterous levels. You need that in order to force resolution. It can often be the most eye-rolling part of a novel, but subconsciously it might be necessary, or at least it’s expected in certain genres. Cat Steadman keeps it cool though. There’s a final confrontation that does get a little wild, but maybe it’s not wild enough. Or maybe it’s undercut by the opening scene where we know she’s burying a body.

Here’s what also works: exactly what I said didn’t work above. Honestly, it’s hard to say. After all, I’m still thinking about this book. It was exceptional. Maybe that’s the best thing to aim for?

DON’T skip it: if you’ve heard comparisons with Gone Girl and you hated Aimee Dunne. Erin isn’t Aimee at all. In some moments she feels like it, but she’s not.

DO skip it: if you aren’t interested in the slow descent of relationships, and the question, when DID we start to go bad?

BONUS: Something In The Water was written by the prolific working British actress, Catherine Steadman, most famous in the US for her role as Mabel Lane Fox on Downton Abbey. Cat recently released her third novel, THE DISAPPEARING ACT. I already bought it and have it sitting near the top of my TBR pile!

This is a “highly recommend” from me. The concept and the execution are incredibly strong.

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Mare of Eastown

Here’s the story from HBO Max: As her life crumbles around her, a small-town Pennsylvania detective Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) investigates a local murder. The series explores the dark side of a close community and provides an authentic examination of how family and past tragedies can define our present.

NO SPOILERS in this review.

Here’s what works: Kate Winslet. We’ve never seen a character like this, and her performance is exceptional. She makes looking like a completely different person effortless.

Here’s what else works: the large cast of characters reflects a normal community and each storyline is developed so that you never know who or what are the red herrings. Some great acting all around, and some exciting young newcomers.

Here’s what doesn’t work: the large cast of characters can confuse at times, especially which kids belonged to whom.

Here’s what else doesn’t work: the ending. I mean technically it works. It’s explained well. I will tread carefully because no spoilers but I will say this: Mare treated the law like a buffet table where you can take some of one and leave the stuff you don’t want for the entire season, but then when the killer is revealed — someone who has reason to leave outside of the law — Mare is ALL about the letter of the law. I found it displeasing to me personally, but more importantly I found it inconsistent with the character we had come to know so well.

Pet Peeve No One Will Care About More Than Me: the wannabe Boston-ness. The in-your-face Philadelphia accents couldn’t distract from this wannabe Boston show. The setting looked too much like Boston. Mare actually says, “let the healing begin,” while in her therapist’s office. We all worship Good Will Hunting, but when set in Philly, using that line felt like stealing rather than homage. And then Mare’s best friend wearing a CitySports t-shirt in the last episode really pushed me over the edge. Someone wanted this show set in Boston but the studio said “Boston’s been done before, let’s do something new and exciting: Philly.” Wah-wah.

DON’T skip it if: you love family drama with murder mystery. It holds up as one of the best at what it is. It’s worth the seven hours.

DO skip it if: you only want to tune in because of peer pressure. In a month, Mare will be as forgettable as The Undoing.

This is a “sure, watch it” from me.

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Uncategorized

Made For Love

MADE FOR LOVE on HBOMax is the best show you may have missed this summer.

Here’s the story from IMDB: a young woman, on the run after 10 years in a suffocating marriage to a tech billionaire, suddenly realizes that her husband has implanted a revolutionary monitoring device in her brain that allows him to track her every move. The comedy series is a darkly absurd and cynically poignant story of love and divorce.

The HBO Max show is co-created by Alissa Nutting, author of the 2017 novel of the same name, but let me tell you, the show and the book are very different! Or the characters are the same, but the plot is perfectly tailored for TV.

NO SPOILERS in this review.

I’m going to focus on the show, which I deeply loved. It’s not really a secret that we love love on Pop Fiction Women, and this was my personal favorite flavor, that thin line between love and hate. We meet Hazel, played by the captivating Cristin Milioti (did you see the movie Palm Springs?), and Byron (played by Billy Magnussen, who I am ashamed to say I find so appealing in this show) — we meet them at a low point. He’s implanted a chip in her head, not because he’s evil, but because he wants to avoid miscommunication with the wife he adores. She is not happy about this, or anything, really, that has developed since Byron rescued Hazel from her dismal life of living in a trailer and missing her deceased mother.

Here’s what works: the exploration of marriage and the decision to divorce (or not). We get to see this couple meet and fall in love in flashback, we see the facade they keep up before the relationship breaks, and we see the awful things they do to each other to push each other away, and we see them stumble towards what might be next. The push/pull dynamic is incredibly relatable, even if their circumstances aren’t.

I don’t want to give too much away, but the epigraph at the beginning of the book fits perfectly: “The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us.”

Here’s what also works: Ray Romano’s character as the town pervert and a shitty father. His sex doll “girlfriend”, whom he is fully committed to, feels slightly recycled from Lars and the Real Girl, but it works, particularly as his relationship damage is revealed. His role as a shitty father is hard to watch, especially when Hazel calls him out and he refuses to change, but it’s also honest and realistic. In real life most people get defensive when they are called out, they don’t plan a huge life change and write a big speech to win their slighted beloved back again. But they totally should. That’s why we love fiction.

Here’s what doesn’t work: there are two episodes (one and a half really) towards the middle/end that get a little slow. They lose the pulse of what really works: exploring the relationships that form us. Luckily they really get back on track to conclude the season.A treat that’s different from the book: the character of Fiffany (Noma Dumezweni) and the addition of Judiff (Kym Whitley). These characters are not connected in the show, and it’s never explained why names with T are replaced with F but I’m hoping the writers have planted seeds in our minds for a reveal in the second season (fingers crossed).

DON’T skip it if: you’re not a sci-fi fan. I am not, and I loved this show. The same way Wandavision isn’t just for Marvel fans, this show is not steeped in science fiction. The hook is about the extent of it.

DO skip it if: you are particularly unsympathetic towards a) people who misguidedly control things they love (Byron is controlling), and/or b) people who run away from problems they can’t confront (Hazel’s MO).

This is a STRONG RECOMMEND from me. And the show has been picked up for Season 2!

I’m fascinated to hear how she was involved in changing so much of her own story. Other adaptations that drastically depart from the source material (I’m thinking Little Fires, Handmaid’s Tale, Big Little Lies) have not included the creator in the development and the writers’ room. Does she prefer her book or the TV show? I have so many questions.

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What is a complicated woman?

Is The Untamed Woman Tolerable?

We recently recorded our episode on Glennon Doyle’s bestselling memoir, Untamed. She calls all women to shed the conditioning that teaches us to please others, to make ourselves smaller, to suppress our desires, and instead, she wants us to get untamed. 

The first time I read the book, my reaction was, “this is how I live my life and no one likes me.” Ok, that might be a) slight exaggeration and/or b) my own fault, unrelated to my untamed nature. 

On my second reading I found the undeniable value in Glennon’s work. Asking women to be untamed, showing them how to untame themselves with the four keys and highlighting reactions that come from our conditioning is important. The goal of becoming untamed is aspirational.

And then I thought about the work we do here at Pop Fiction Women. At the end of every episode we encourage women to Stay Complicated! Maybe being complicated is a way to bridge the gap from here to untamed?

Writer and director Leslye Headland has expressed her theory of why sometimes studio executives or audiences don’t “get” some of her characters, which I’m adapting to explain the reason this podcast is so important: we as a society lack the training to tolerate complicated women. 

We have trouble tolerating them because we don’t understand them. We don’t know them intimately. We hold them at arms’ length, out of fear that their complicated nature is contagious or maybe because we think holding them away will keep us safe, that it won’t ignite the feelings we know we have bubbling right beneath the surface. But that’s the work we do here. 

We discuss different types of women, with different damage, different struggles, different backgrounds, different attitudes, and different stages of their growth. We dig into them without fear. We bring our judgments because we are human, but we also bring our curiosity and intelligence and empathy and Kate and I each bring a different point of view. 

We do this in service of one singular goal: that all women feel free. Free from judgment, preconceived notions, shoulds and supposed tos. Free from the constraints of our culture, our families, men, other women, even — or maybe especially, free from our own beliefs that keep us caged and small.

This podcast’s primary focus on fiction allows people — men and women alike — to take a step back and say, look at these characters that we’re talking about, let’s analyze them, let’s look at what they’re doing and why? What is working for them? What isn’t? We unpack all of the preconceived notions that we bring to the table, and we dig into the women creators behind the scenes because that’s what they’re doing too. Embracing their complications. This analysis puts a step between you, the listener and the doer.

You don’t have to be Fleabag. In fact Phoebe Waller-Bridge said she wrote Fleabag because she didn’t want to become Fleabag. She created her and then we talk about her. Through this exercise, maybe other people can understand these complicated women a little bit better. And then by understanding them, we aren’t as afraid. We aren’t as judgmental. We’re willing to just let people live and do whatever they need to do, and we can also be free for ourselves. We are bridging the gap from caged to complicated to untamed. 

This is a big job, but we can handle it.

Stay complicated with us.

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What is a complicated woman?

The Best Way To Have An Uncomplicated Life? Be A Complicated Person.

The Best Way To Have An Uncomplicated Life? Be A Complicated Person. No, that’s not backwards. You read it right.

When your podcast centers around “complicated women” you think a lot about complicated. I started noticing that complicated people often have uncomplicated lives, contrary to first impressions. And that uncomplicated people have complicated lives. Is there a correlation? 

Kate and I discussed productivity vs. busy-ness on our Untamed episode where I likened myself to a large breed dog. My brain needs a lot of stimulation, the equivalent of a forty-mile walk for Rover, every single day. If I don’t get that mental energy out before bed, I can’t fall asleep. I end up doing the human brain equivalent of gnawing on the floorboards and eating your shoes. In the dark, I unfairly pick apart things in my life that are imperfectly wonderful (nothing is perfect, after all) out of boredom. This is not a good situation. But it happened all the time when I was trying to force myself into the life I had planned. 

I blew up that life in phases, and slowly rebuilt the one I really wanted but was too afraid to go after, or not trusting enough to follow. In that process, I learned that it’s better for me to spend my days embracing my own complications.

That means I sit in my closet with my ragtag “altar” and say my own made-up “prayer” or “mantra” — and I also scream and curse when something doesn’t go as expected. I’m a zen hot-head. That means I get equally lost in the bliss of my financial budget and my novel. I’m left-brained and right-brained.

I’m loud and shy. I like to be the center of attention and I’m an introvert. And as my favorite mug proclaims, “I am small and sensitive, but also fight me” under a drawing of a cute cat holding a switchblade. That one’s pretty self-explanatory. The point is, I never force myself to be one thing. I am complicated. 

Some people are uncomplicated and live uncomplicated lives. We love those people! Don’t ever change! But more people ARE complicated, and have been taught to repress or reconcile the traits that make them complicated. In turn, that inner dimension comes out sideways: in their outer lives. They cannot sit comfortably with their own depths and dualities, their own complications, so they make their lives complicated. They meddle in other people’s drama. They engage in self-destructive behavior just to have a mess to clean up. Sometimes this dysfunction even parades as “responsibility.” The family daily planners of these people look like color-coded chaos to me now. They fill their every free moment with busy-ness or achievement. I once was that way too.

Magically, when I allowed myself to become complicated, when I embraced all my contradictions, when I stopped looking outside myself for someone to tell me which of my behaviors were harming me and which were good for me, my life became proportionately uncomplicated. I knew who I loved and what I loved to do, what I was passionate about and what challenges were worth the struggle.

Kate and I were preparing to record a new outro for our podcast episodes. At the end of our old one, Kate says, “keep it complicated.” Then we realized all our show notes say “stay complicated.” At first I wasn’t sure which one should stand as our tagline. I liked the alliteration of keep it complicated, but the truth is, I don’t want anyone to keep it complicated. Don’t complicate your life with so much doing that you forget how to be you. All of you, without hiding, ignoring, or fixing any of it. You aren’t broken, you are human. So stay complicated!!

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Little Fires Everywhere Uncategorized

Am I The Bird Or Am I The Cage?

We build these cages around ourselves because we have to do it. We need shelter. We need basic structure and security. Cages are necessary and good. But this is the gut-punch of life: those cages can become overgrown. Overgrown with resentment, with unexpressed disappointments, with repressed dreams, with opportunities never even entertained. Material manifestations of emotional waste. 

Life’s choices are often binary. We take the job or we don’t. We leave the marriage or we don’t. We have kids or we don’t. It’s not the result that can alter our lives. Instead the real power comes in making those choices honestly and openly. I’m afraid this is the part people miss. The value of the process. 

It doesn’t really matter if you stay or go, if you do or don’t. It matters whether you are willing to get really still to think about it. It matters whether you are willing to be painfully honest about the good and the bad sides of both options. It matters that you SAY IT ALL. Out loud. To another human being. Instead we believe we weigh it in our mind. We think we already know.  

My mother would be so disappointed

I don’t have a right to walk away

My sister needs me to be this way

My kids will be ruined

My family will suffer with less

My life is good

So many people would want the things I have

This is what I wanted (ok, but what do you want now?)

It’s overwhelming, I know. We can start by exploring the sometimes subtle differences between suffocation and dissatisfaction. One can be cured with a massive gulp of fresh air and gratitude. The other is holding you back. It is causing long-term damage. If you are dissatisfied, smaller changes can make a big difference. If you are suffocating, out is the only way. There is no security in a house that’s burning down.

Don’t stay out of fear of what’s outside.

Don’t run away either. 

Just because you can see the door doesn’t mean you should bolt without looking back.

I’ve been in the place where it feels horrible. Where you all of a sudden know that your life is going to be completely different when you walk out that door. But I left, and I survived and I made myself a promise. I would never get there again. So everything that makes me comfortable? I periodically dismantle it. I take my life apart to inspect it for cracks and leaks. I make sure it’s all still working. And as I reassemble it, I look at each piece and say do I still need this?

I choose my life. I choose my husband all the time. I choose my job all the time. I choose my kids all the time — I look at them and say what can I do to help them become this or that, and I look at myself and say how can I accept them more exactly as they are?

This work is not for the faint of heart. To say it can be really really hard is an understatement. But when I broke free of the expectations that set me on auto-pilot, I vowed to build a life, and to break it down. 

This is my reward for all those hard times: I will never, ever, ever be in a cage.

And freedom is more beautiful and exhilarating and gratifying than all of that pain. 

I know not everybody gets a new life. It takes courage to start over again. It takes time to make it feel worth it. Not everyone even finds the door. But if you see it, and you can promise you will build it up, break it down, build it up, then you deserve to try.

But am I the cage or am I the bird?

In the cage it feels like everything is broken and everything needs to be fixed. Even things that truly aren’t broken, but maybe are simply mid-assembly. In the cage, doing this work sounds exhausting and horrible. Once you are free you realize that so many times NOTHING needs to be fixed. You only need to take it all apart to see that you are not the cage, even though you may have come to identify with it so much that you can’t see the bars. You are not the cage. You are the bird.

“You can fly away too, that’s on you.”

*That last line in quotations is from the Ingrid Michaelson song, Build It Up, which was written for the finale of Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu. The themes in this essay were inspired by that episode, and Kate and I explore them on our recap episode, but you don’t have to have watched or listened to relate to these ideas.